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US gives Kyoto the cold shoulder

NEARLY all the major industrialised countries have promised to bring the
Kyoto Protocol, designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, into law by 2002. But
Canada, Australia and the largest emitter of these gases, the US, have yet to
make such a pledge.

The Kyoto Protocol requires industrialised nations to cut their emissions by
an average of 5.2 per cent by 2010. However, the final rulebook, including
methods for reaching targets through investments in clean energy projects
abroad, will not be agreed until next November at a meeting in the Hague.

The US Congress is currently in an isolationist mood and openly hostile to
the Protocol. But the US’s chief negotiator in Bonn, Frank Loy, says that he
expects Congress to come under increasing pressure from public opinion and
energy companies eager to exploit the investment and carbon-trading
opportunities that it offers.

To enter into force, the Protocol requires the signature of countries
responsible for at least 55 per cent of the emissions from the industrialised
world. The European Union and Japan have pledged to ratify by 2002, so it would
only take ratification by Russia—which has spare carbon credits to sell
under the agreement—to make up that 55 per cent.

Meanwhile, the US is among several industrialised countries likely
to fail to meet the promise, made at the 1992 Earth Summit, to reduce emissions
to 1990 levels by 2000. The US is expected to miss the target by 11 per cent.